Game On, Or Game Over? How to be a Policy Player.
Play is fun and it’s not just for little kids. It’s how we learn and explore and experiment. I’ve been interested in play since my undergraduate thesis about creative forms of resistance against corporate advertising. I read books like “Playing the Future” by Douglas Rushkoff and dug into the work of Education Researchers like Piaget. I came up with the mantra “Play is the Way” as a reminder that when we face challenges, sometimes the best solutions and healing can be found through play. It takes a lot of courage and faith to trust the creative process of play, because you can’t be sure of the outcome and it’s hard to control, yet when we get into a state of flow where our intrinsic motivation and sense of wonder are fueling our motivation we can do great things.
This is why I loved working as the advisor for the Hancock Lecture Committee at Hart House when they organized a lecture (along with several events and workshops) in collaboration with Public Policy visionary Vas Bednar, that were designed to celebrate and explore the ways that civic engagement can and are being gamified.
Panel:
Mel Cappe, O.C. former Clerk of the Privy Council and past President of the IRPP, Professor at the School of Public Policy & Governance- Leslie Church, Communications & Public Affairs at Google Canada & member of Ontario’s Open Government Engagement Team(@LeslieChurch)
- Jane Hilderman, Research Manager at Samara(@jhilderman)
- Jim Munroe, political gamemaker (writer on Unmanned and co-designer on Pipe Trouble), executive director of Hand Eye Society, AGO artist-in-residence (@HandEyeSociety)
- Cliff van der Linden, Founder & Executive Director of Vote Compass and Action Canada Fellow (@CliffvdLinden)
- Vass Bednar, Moderator (@VassB)